


The Season for Plums

by whatthefoucault



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucharest, Bucky Barnes's Plums, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Food, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stucky - Freeform, romania - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6801343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefoucault/pseuds/whatthefoucault
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, a man went to the market to buy plums.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Season for Plums

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of the combination of that scene where Bucky was buying plums in the market just before it all went to heck, and some nostalgia for my own Eastern European heritage.
> 
> I'm just going to point you in the direction of [my Civil War Feels playlist](http://8tracks.com/whatthefoucault/we-ve-got-a-war-to-fight), as the first song especially informed quite a bit of Bucky's inner workings that went into this story.
> 
> Translated into Русский here: [Сливовый сезон](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8308168)

Marta knew she ought to mind her own business, but the walls of the apartment block were thin, and it was hard not to notice when your neighbour lived alone, never had company round, and routinely woke up crying. Besides, in the years since Petru passed away, god rest his soul, and Anton started a family of his own, it was not as though Marta was overwhelmed by visitors either. She secured the lid of the old Pyrex dish, pulled on her cardigan and slippers, and padded across the hall to her neighbour's front door.

She knocked three times, at first quite politely. There was no response. She knocked again, with a touch more volume. At last, the door clicked open, and she was met by a tired face.

"Can I help you?" he asked quietly, a timbre of frayed nerves and something else at the edges of his voice. She had seen faces like this before. She smiled politely.

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I made plum dumplings," she said, brandishing the dish piled with little fluffy bundles, each stuffed with a jewel-like plum and dusted with sweet breadcrumbs. "But I made so many and it's just me at home, so I thought I would share with my neighbour."

He stared at the dish a few moments, as though utterly perplexed by the offer, then slowly let the door fall open.

"Thank you," he said.

The apartment was not wholly untidy, but spartan: she was right to bring over dumplings, as it looked as though not a lot of cooking went on there, and it was clear that he did not entertain guests. She noticed the windows shielded by sheets of old newspaper, which made her wonder how she persuaded her way into the home of someone who clearly felt he had reasons to keep the world out. She set the dish down on the table.

"My name is Marta, by the way," she told him.

"Marta," he repeated, with a vacant nod. He did not offer his own name in response. She knew better than to ask. He looked as though he had reasons to keep it to himself.

"You're a long way from America," she said. "Where is your home?"

"I, umm, - I don't... New York. Brooklyn," he said. The hesitation in his speech suggested that he had spent some time asking himself the same questions. "A long time ago. How did you know I was American?"

"Your accent," she said. "It's not strong, but it's there. Most people wouldn't notice."

"You did," he observed.

"I'm not most people," she replied, regretting it immediately, but was met only with a perplexed stare, as he took a seat at the table. "I went to New York once. That was many years ago, too."

As she set out a pair of clean plates and spoons, she remembered New York. She and Petru had not even married then; indeed, he very nearly got himself killed on that outing. He was so reckless back then, but good at what he did, and so funny - that was her favourite thing about him.

"It's different now," said the man. "Everything is, I think."

"Have you ever tried plum dumplings before?" she asked.

He shook his head, cautiously shovelling in his first spoonful.

"I used to make them for my son," she continued. "Anton. I think you must be about his age. He has two daughters. They offered to give me their spare bedroom after Petru, my husband... but, they didn't really want an old woman coming in and taking up space, so here I am. And what about you, do you - "

"Steve," he said, cutting her off.

"Is that your name?" she asked him, puzzled.

"Not me." He shook his head, staring down somewhere past the table. "I'm... not anybody."

"Someone you love, then?" she ventured.

"Yes," he replied quietly. "Very much. That was a long time ago too. I shouldn't have said. I... sometimes, I get confused. It's just me now. I was different. But..."

"I'm sorry," she said. She reached out to rest a hand on his in sympathy. He flinched, pulling his hand away from hers. She had not noticed the prosthetic before. It was clearly sophisticated - not likely civilian, but nothing she recognised. That being said, it had been a good few years now since she was actively paying attention to these things.

"Sorry," he said, visibly uneasy.

"It's okay," she assured him. "How are the dumplings?"

"Good," he nodded, slowly resuming his eating. "Thank you."

"It's nice to have someone to share with," she smiled. "And you have to enjoy the plums while they're in season."

"Yeah, that's smart," he agreed. "They're nice."

A crash and a clatter outside made the man jump to his feet, eyes wide like a stray dog unexpectedly crossing the path of a speeding Sandero.

"It's all right," she assured him. "Only the upstairs neighbours' cat on the balcony."

"Thank you for the dumplings," he said. "I have... work to do now."

She nodded, and made for the hallway.

"It's nice to meet you," she said, and closed the door behind her.

\---

Marta's neighbour appeared at her door a few days later to return her old Pyrex dish. 

"I was just about to make a coffee," she told him. She had, in fact, just made a coffee, and was about to settle down with the book she was reading, but far be it from Marta to suggest that she was making a small extra effort for one as skittish as her neighbour.

He thought for a long moment before accepting the invitation. He stayed almost as quiet as a pig in a corn field, so Marta carried the conversation for the both of them. This was not an interrogation, after all. This was two people, who lived alone, and probably needed the company. She told him about Petru and the funny story about the eggs, and what Anton was like as a boy and how she sees so much of him as a child in his daughters. She told him some of what life was like here when she was young, before the revolution in '89, but not much. She contemplated asking him about the Steve he mentioned, but thought best not to, or at least not yet: whatever had happened to her neighbour, he may well have had reason not to want to remember. Perhaps Steve was back in New York, or lost; a lover, she guessed, a partner, if that flicker of loss that had passed through his expression when the man said his name was any indication. It was the same expression Marta recognised in herself when she talked about Petru.

The coffee was strong and sweet - only the everyday, instant stuff, but Marta had always liked it best.

"Do you have any more of those dumplings?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

She chuckled. "I'd need to make more," she said. "But the plums are still in season. If you wanted to bring some plums round tomorrow, I'll show you how to make them."

"Thank you," said the man.

\---

Marta could not be sure if her neighbour would return to make dumplings, or retreat. Whatever it was that troubled him, he did not hide it well. She was delighted when, in the afternoon, there was a knock at the door.

"Good afternoon," she said. "Are you ready to learn to make dumplings?"

The man stood in the doorway with a plastic carrier bag in one hand, but he looked more distressed than she had seen him.

"Here," he said, handing her a bag of plums. "How far is your son's house from here?"

"About thirty minutes on the bus," she shrugged. "Why?"

"Now would be a good time to visit your grandchildren," he said. He was trying not to look like he was looking over his shoulder.

"But didn't you want to - "

"Please," he said. "Don't worry about me. Go visit your grandchildren, now."

There was a knowing behind his words that betrayed a newly-sharpened sense of terror, and maybe resignation. Marta knew she could be a dark horse in a fight if she needed to: after all, no one expects the grandmother next door to be an expert marksman (how quick the people are to forget that their grandparents were young once too) but that was not her life now, and she knew her friend would not tell her what it was he was expecting with such trepidation. If he had secrets to keep, and she was sure he did, he held onto them tightly. The only secret he had confided, it seemed, was someone named Steve.

She gave him the best reassuring smile she could. "That's a good idea," she agreed. "Save the plums, and we'll make dumplings tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he repeated, with a quiet nod, and turned back to his own door.

For the first time since he took up residence there, she could just hear muffled voices behind the door. Best to move on quickly, she thought. It was not her place to eavesdrop. 

\---

When Marta knocked on Anton's door, his wife was already on her way home from work, having left as soon as Anton called.

"You scared the hell out of us when you didn't answer your phone!" he shouted, dragging her into a tight hug. "We had no way of knowing what had happened to you!"

"Anton, my dear, you know I can take care of myself very well," she chastised him gently.

"You're not an agent anymore, mama," he replied.

"That may be, but a good agent never forgets her training," she said. "Now, how about I make us all a cup of fruit tea?"

It was when she noticed the news on the little television Anton kept in the kitchen that the coin dropped. The suspect pictured on the television was unambiguously her neighbour; indeed, the grainy mobile phone footage shown alongside was most definitely of foreign police storming their way into her building. Of course he suggested a trip to the grandkids' - he knew they were coming.

"Oh, the poor creature, no wonder he was afraid," she said gravely. She knew he was nowhere near Vienna at the time of the bombings, because they had been in her kitchen, drinking coffee. She had been telling him a somewhat abridged version of the story of how she had met Petru, when they were just a couple of young agents on a recon mission gone hilariously wrong - well, not in so many words in this telling. As much as he had secrets he needed to keep, so did she.

His name, it turned out, was James; his former codename - now _there_ was something she had heard before. But this James, her neighbour, was someone different from all that. She was glad he had run, and not stuck his feet in when the police came.

The building was a mess when she returned. The man was long gone, and he had taken out half the staircase with him. Her flat was, for better or worse, more or less undisturbed, but her neighbour's door was broken in, windows smashed, floorboards broken. James from New York would not be back to make dumplings, but she hoped he was safe. Perhaps his Steve was out there somewhere, or at the very least, she hoped, peace.

As for the building, she had lived through worse, delivered about as bad herself in her time, and would make do.

\---

Bucky was already in the kitchen by the time Steve had finished showering and dressing. Sometimes Bucky still had trouble sleeping, even on their quiet days, but he was finding ways to busy himself that quieted his mind. More often than not, in the mornings, this meant breakfast.

"Morning, punk," said Bucky, glancing up from the recipe on his tablet.

"Morning, Buck," Steve beamed, folding his arms around Bucky's shoulders, and pressing a soft kiss behind his ear. "What's on the menu?"

"I found the most amazing plums in season at the market yesterday," he said, with a quiet smile. "Have you ever had plum dumplings?"

**Author's Note:**

> By popular demand (read: probably 2 people), [a recipe for the dumplings has now been posted here.](http://whatthefoucault.tumblr.com/post/144416878391/that-scene-in-civil-war-where-buckys-buying-plums)


End file.
